East Texas Historical Journal Volume 25 Issue 1 Article 1 3-1987 ETHJ Vol-25 No-1 Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/ethj Part of the United States History Commons Tell us how this article helped you. Recommended Citation (1987) "ETHJ Vol-25 No-1," East Texas Historical Journal: Vol. 25 : Iss. 1 , Article 1. Available at: https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/ethj/vol25/iss1/1 This Full Issue is brought to you for free and open access by the History at SFA ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in East Texas Historical Journal by an authorized editor of SFA ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. VOLUME XXV 1987 NUMBER 1 EA TTEXA . HISTORICAL JOURNAL EAST TEXAS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION OFFICERS Joe L. White President Mrs. Virginia Long First Vice President Gwin Morris Second Vice President Ms. Tommie Jan Lowery Treasurer DIRECTORS Melvin Mason Huntsville 1987 Ms. Marilyn Rhinehart Houston 1988 Ron Hufford Lufkin 1988 Lincoln King , ..Gary 1988 Mike Kingston Dallas 1988 Bill O'Neal Carthage 1989 Naaman Woodland Beaumont 1989 Gladys Meisenheimer Jefferson 1989 Jewel Cates Dallas .ex-President William J. Brophy Nacogdoches ex-President F. Lee Lawrence Tyler Director Emeritus William R. Johnson Nacogdoches ex-officio James V. Reese Nacogdoches ex-officio EDITORIAL BOARD Valentine J. Belfiglio Garland Bob Bowman Lufkin Gama L. Christian Houston Ouida Dean Nacogdoches Patricia A. Gajda Tyler Robert L. Glover Tyler Bobby H. Johnson Nacogdoches Patricia Kell Baytown Max S. Lale , Fort Worth Irvin M. May, Jr Bryan Bill O'Neal " Carthage Chuck Parsons South Wayne, WI Fred Tarpley Commerce Archie P. McDonald EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND EDITOR MEMBERSHIP INSTITUTIONAL MEMBERS PAY $100 annually. LIFE MEMBERS pay $250 or more. SUSTAINING MEMBER, PATRON pays $75 and BENEFACTOR pays $50 annually. REGULAR MEMBERS pay $12 dues annually. STUDENT MEMBERS pay $8 dues annually. P.O. Box 6223 STEPHEN F. AUSTIN STATE UNIVERSITY Nacogdoches, Texas 75962 $7.00 per copy to non-members. $3.00 per copy to members. XXV - East Texas Historical Association EAST TEXAS HISTORICAL JOURNAL Volume xxv 1987 Number 1 CONTENTS WRITING EAST TEXAS HISTORY, 1972-]985 by James H. Conrad .................................. .. 3 THE DISPLACEMENT OF EAST TEXAS IN MOVIES ABOUT TEXAS by Don Graham _.. 18 A SMUGGLER'S EXILE; S.M. SWENSON FLEES TEXAS by ~chard Afoore ,23 POLISH ETHNORELIGION OF EAST TEXAS; THE CASE OF ST. JOSEPH'S PARISH, 1866-1900 by James S. Olson , _ , 30 THE Y'BARBO LEGEND AND EARLY SPANISH SETTLEMENT by Francis Edward A bernerhy 38 EAST TEXAS COLLOQUY , ,., , 44 BOOK NOTES , 46 BOOK REVIEWS ,., ,., 49 Archie P. McDonald, Executive Director and Editor STEPHEN F. AUSTIN STATE UNIVERSITY P.O. BOX 6223 NACOGDOCHES, TEXAS 75962 2 EAST TEXAS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION BOOKS REVIEWED McCullar, Restoring Texas. Raiford Stripling's Lifc and Architccture, by Charles K. Phillips Storey, Texas Baptist Leadership and Sodal Christianity, 1900-1980, by Jerry Self Weaver, Castro's Colony. Empresario Development in Texas, 1843-1865, by William W, White Bernhard, 1ma Hogs. The Governor's Daughter, by Linda Cross Jackson, Voyages of the Steamboat Yellow Stone, by Ron Spiller Wallace, Charles DeMorse: Pioneer Statesman and Father of Texas Journalism, by Max S. Lale Partlow, Liberty, Liberty County, and the Atascosita District, by Randolph B. Campbell Friends of the Commerce Public Library, The Handbook of Commerce, Texas, 1872-1985. by Randolph B. Campbell Schofield, Indians, Cattle, Ships, and Oil: The Story of W.M.D. Lee, by Roger M, Olien White, The Forgotten Ca.ttle King, by Paul H. Carlson Jackson, Los Mestenos. Spanish RanChing in Texas, 1721-1821, by Paul H. Carlson Graham, Texas: A Literary Portrait, by Thomas Stroud King, Warning: Writer at Work. The Best Collectibles of Larry King, by Thomas Guth Kelton, The Good Old Boys, by Lee Schultz Schoelwer, Alamo Images: Perspectives of a Texas Experience, by Mark Steven Choate Foster, The Alamo and Other Texas Missions to Remember, by Paul Andrew Hutton Kingston, Walter Prescott Webb in Stephens County, by Janet Schmelzer Parsons, "Pidge:" A Texas Ranger From Virginia. The Life and Letters ofLieutenant T.e. Robin- son, WaShington County Volunteer Militia Company "A," by Bill O'Neal Greer. Buck Barry: Texas Ranger and Frontiersman, by Jim Miller Capps, The Trail to Ogallala. by B. Byron Price Utley and Salvant, If These Walls Could Talk: Historic Forts of Texas, by Richard Johnson Barsness, Hea.ds, Hides & Horns. The Compleat Buffalo Book, by Brian I. Bowles Blackstone, Buckskins, Bullets, and Business, by Michael K. Schoenecke Williams, Tame the Wild Stallion, by James H. Conrad Worcester, Lone Hunter's Gray Pony, by James H. Conrad Ferguson, The Summerfield Stories. by James H. Conrad Hobson, Remembering America. A Sampler of the WPA American Guide Series. by James H. Conrad Samuels. Frederic Remington: A Biography. by Michael L. Tate Miller, On the Border, by Francisco D. Lopez-Herrera Ankerson, Agrarian Warlord. Satumino CedjJIo and the Mexican Revolution in San Luis Potosi, by Arnoldo De Leon Kahl, Ballot Box 13. How Lyndon Johnson Won His 1948 Senate Race by 87 Contested Votes, by J. David Cox Heintze, Private Black ColJeges in Texas, 1865-1954, by Donald E, Everett Cross and Glover, A History of Tyler Junior College, 1926-1986, by Bill O'Neal Ruff, Unsung Heroes ofTexas: Stories ofCourage and Honor From Texas History a.nd Legend, by Maury Darst Fraser, Saunders, and Wakelyn, The Web of Southern Social Relations: Women, Famil)', and Education, by Elizabeth York Enstam Blackwelder, Women ofthe Depression. Caste and Culture in San Antonio, 1929-1939, by Ouida Whitaker Dean Lowiu, The New Deal and the West, by Ben Procter Rister, Fort Griffin on the Texas Frontier, by Charles E. Moss Fredriksson, American Rodeo: From Buffalo Bill to Big Business, by B, Byron Price. Flores, Journal ofan Indian Trader: Anthony Glass and the Texas Trading Frontier, 1790-1810, by Ron Spiller Rollins, Will Rogers: A Bio-Bibliography, by James Smallwood Mesquite Historical Committee. A Stake in the Prairie. Mesquite, Texas, by Fred Tarpley Farris, From Rattlesnakes to Road Agents. Rough Times on the Frio, by Adrian Anderson EAST TEXAS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 3 WRITING EAST TEXAS HISTORY, 1972~1985 by James H. Conrad In the spring of 1974, this journal published an annotated bibliography of East Texas histories. The compilers, Gloria Frye and Bar­ bara Edwards, selected books that appeared between 1963 and 1972. l Since much new research and interpretation of the East Texas past has been done in the last thirteen years, it is appropriate to present a new survey of the historical literature. Because of the number of works on East Texas, a comprehensive review is impossible; therefore, only the significant, ground breaking secondary sources - both articles and monographies ­ have been chosen for inclusion. This process of selection is subjective. The definition of what constitutes East Texas is also somewhat subjec­ tive. But for purposes of this essay, East Texas is defined as that region of Texas east of the Cross Timbers and Brazos River and extending as far north as the Red River and as far south as the Gulf Coast. The history of East Texas cannot be understood apart from the geography that nurtured the people, that shaped patterns of settlement and provided forms of livelihood. The physical environment of East Texas has changed drastically in the past 200 years into a region where few if any part remains unmodified by man. The shift from wilderness and plains to planted fields and pasture lands - which took nearly a century and a half and entailed complex though not always obvious alterations in climate1 water supply, plant and animal life - has engaged the attention of historians. In the last two years, historians have written three books on the history of the interaction of man and land in Texas. In their Land ofBears and Honey Joe C. Truett and Daniel W. Lay, native East Texans, provided a thoughtful, though somewhat romantic study of the changes man has made in the natural environment of East Texas over the past 150 years. 2 Drawing upon reports, diaries, official surveys, and travelers' descriptions of East Texas from the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, Truett and Lay described the unspoiled wilderness, the wildlife, the cause of the eventual destruction of anirnallife, changing vegetation, and the dis­ appearance of the forests. Robin W. Doughty's Wildlife and Man in Texas: Environmental Change and Conservation and Del Weniger's The Ex­ plorers' Texas: The Lands and Waters presented more systematic ap­ proaches to the ecology of Texas but their coverage remained more general and perhaps more superficial. 3 A somewhat different approach to man-land relation is an article by Dan L. Flores, published in 1984, that summarizes the results of the Freeman and Custis Expedition of 1806, the first scientific expedition to explore the Red River. 4 Freeman's descriptions of the Indian villages along James H. Conrad is University Archivist and Oral Historian at East Texas State University_ 4 EAST TEXAS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION the river and Custis' ethnological and ethnobotanical references, reprinted in a Jefferson and Southwestern Exploration, edited by Flores, are a valuable aid in appreciating the ecology and enthology of the Red River on the eve of Anglo settlement of Northeast Texas. In another study on the ecology of East Texas, geographer Terry G. Jordan examined the microcosm and the prairie in the eastern parts of Texas, openings that farmers often preferred to the wooded areas and that often shaped pat­ terns of settlement in East Texas. 3 Like Jordan's prairie enclaves scattered across the woodlands of East Texas. the Big Thicket, Caddo Lake, and North Titus County are wilderness and cultural enclaves, anomalies in an industrialized and ur­ banized countryside.